Frick Yeah: Part 2

A Short Story

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Gary did not sleep well. On top of the psychic damage, Brie Larson’s Buff Chick Pizza had settled heavily within him. He threw himself about the bed, the same one he slept in as a boy, like a hot dog on a roller grill. The bed and Gary groaned. 

He spent the night semi-lucid, dreaming vividly of sexual congress and “running the bases” with multiple stars from the Billboard Top Female Artists chart. At dawn, the sun stirred him. Gary turned on a Patreon episode of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe Podcast” to fall back asleep, but it just made him angry.

Finally, Gary threw off the covers, put his feet down and sat on the side of the bed, staring at the floor. He silently said to God, “Even though you hate me, even though you don’t care for me, even though you regret me and consider me your worst creation, give me one small sign.”

Gary’s phone buzzed and he snatched it up: a Telegram message. 

Mehrab: must see this bro 🤣🤣🤣

Mehrab: Watch “Animal vs Tain - Animals Hit By Train Compilation #1” on the YouTube app.

Gary trudged downstairs, shaking the house with each plod. His mother, Linda, was already awake at the small table by the bottom of the stars. She sipped at tea from her “I Wish This Were Pinot” mug and stared out the window. A book, Easy Large Print Word Searches, lay unopened in front of her. She turned as Gary descended. From her vantage point, sections of his flopping genitals were briefly visible with each heavy step through the fly of his boxer shorts.

“Good morning, Gar Bear,” she said.

“Hello,” Gary said.

“I heard you muttering to yourself last night when you came in,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t check on you, but I was already in bed.”

“I was dealing with a crisis.”

“A crisis? Oh Jesus Christ, are you sick?” 

Linda moved to get out of her chair, but Gary waved her back down. 

“A security crisis. Someone feculated on our sidewalk,” he said.

“Feculated?”

“There was night soil.”

“What?”

“They befouled the sidewalk. They excrapated.”

“Gar, what the hell are you talking about?”

Gary clenched his eyes shut. 

“Someone took a dump, Ma,” he said loudly. “On our sidewalk!”

“Oh, yuck. Like a dog?”

“Why does everyone immediately assume dog? You and Boleslav…”

“You told Mr. Kotrba?” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t bother him with stupid crap like that, Gary. I’m trying to get a new oven.”

“You can’t let this sort of thing go unpunished.” The soles of his feet went “splat!” against the linoleum as he paced around the kitchen.

“Gary, what do you want for breakfast?”

“I don’t know.”

“Eggs?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Scrambled or fried?”

“Scrambled.”

“Ok.”

“With cheese.”

“Toast?”

“Fine.”

“What kind of jam?”

Gary threw his hands up.

“Jesus fucking shit, Ma. You’re giving me decision fatigue.” 

Linda stared back, unhappy with the swearing but used to it.

“Why do you think I can’t get any work done on my channel?” Gary moaned. “Do you think Mr. Beast gets nagged like this all day long? Steve Jobs only wore one fucking outfit!”

Gary started back up the stairs.

“I’ll bring it to your room then, so you can start working,” his mother called.

“Thank you. And homefries, not toast. Please.”

Linda heard the door shut as she turned on the stove. 

Fifteen minutes later, she brought the food to Gary’s bedroom, even though her doctor had told her not to go up or down stairs with her hands full. She found Gary on the floor, rummaging underneath his bed. He dragged out a tube, covered in sienna leather with an embossed Jolly Roger. He pulled out a gleaming brass telescope. 

Mark, Linda’s dead husband and Gary’s dead dad, had purchased it for Gary in the gift shop of The Legend of Jack Sparrow Experience at Universal Orlando in 2006. Gary had begged and begged for it, stamping his feet and raising his voice until Mark gave in, bless his soul. When they flew home, Gary forgot the telescope in the hotel room and Linda had to call the front desk and ask them to mail it. To this day he insisted it had resale value. 

“Where should I put your breakfast, Gar Bear?” 

“Anywhere,” Gary muttered as he pointed the telescope toward the street. 

“Don’t eat it in bed,” Linda said. “It’s not good.”

“Ma, I’m trying to catch the criminal who attacked our house.” 

“Oh God, Gary,” she sighed. “Please don’t make this into one of your things. You’ve been doing so good with the videos.”

Linda paused. Gary required a light touch. Her head hurt, and once the headaches started, they stayed the whole day. 

“Eat. Before it gets cold,” she said, setting the plate down on the foot of Gary’s bed. As she shut the door behind her, Gary stretched to grab the plate without taking his eye from the telescope. He brushed the rim with a finger and in his pawing and groping knocked the plate to the floor. Fortunately, it made no noise against the carpet so his mother would not hear. Gary exasperatedly placed the telescope on the bed, knelt to scoop the eggs and homefries back onto the plate with his hands, and snarfed the food down before standing up. He could finally focus on the task at hand. 

It felt like hours. The telescope left a puffy red circle around his eye socket and the brass was greasy with the residue of breakfast. His reconnaissance was fruitless: a few delivery workers making their rounds; two old women in wheelchairs pushed by caretakers; one young mother with her infant in a stroller; a group of teenagers using a crushed 7-Up can to smoke what he had to assume was narcotics (and though unrelated to his case, Gary called 911 regardless.) He was starving.

As he descended the stairs, he looked for his mother. She was nowhere to be found, neither at the table nor on the couch, where she sometimes spent the afternoon with the landline phone, buying plastic jewelry or donating money to abandoned animals and starving babies in Africa. She must have been napping.

Gary grabbed the car keys and headed out, over the doormat, past the azaleas to the sidewalk. It was still there, still intact, preserved by the autumn chill. God, it made him so fucking pissed! Shit! Right there on the fucking sidewalk! In front of his fucking house! Shit! SHIT! With his poor old mother, never the same after the fall, sitting right inside at the table with her puzzles or on the couch with the phone. Gary kicked the car door, but avoided full contact because of his flip flops. 

Gary started the car and pulled away from the curb. He did not connect his phone and drove in silence. Where was he going? He might as well make a video, and get something out of this hellish day. Burger King — they always have new menu items. 

Then he saw it: greyish, small, slow, with a large red sore on its hindquarter. It was limping on that leg. Its fur was missing in erratic patches, exposing the scaly, white skin beneath. Its head was only inches above the asphalt. It stopped every three or four steps. Gary knew it instantly. Old, infirm, feeble -- the profile of incontinence. His mother had a few accidents right after the fall. He pressed his flip flop into the accelerator. The motor squealed, there was a thump, and the car shook as if it had run up on the curb.

A few minutes later, Gary was in the Burger King drive-thru. He could see small clumps of blood and hair on the hood. Then he realized: his camera was at home. No content today. His subscribers would be upset, he hoped.